Celestia Forums

Hi folks, I have been looking around all week and can't find any add-ons relating to Larry Niven's "Known Space" novels.

Is there anybody out there who might know of some?

Thanks,

Well, there have been several attempts at making Ringworld models.

e.g. http://jeam.tag.free.fr/CELESTIAhtml/Ce ... ns-SF3.htm
(which is in French)

There are several threads where Known Space has been discussed. A Search will find them.

It might be appropriate to do a Web search for models (there are plenty) and ask one of their authors about assembling them into an Addon for Celestia.

Thanks, Selden.
I should have mentioned that I located the Ringworld files and the Ramscoop files....Sorry.

You may also be interested in buggs_moran's next addon, Beta Lyrae which gets a brief mention in one of Niven's short stories:
http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php ... ght=#67849

Thanks! I left Buggs a message concerning progress.....

It's funny, I was just reading Niven's "Neutron Star" The book that contains the story about Beta Lyrae.."The soft Weapon"

Celestia has me dragging out all my old Niven books, dreaming of flying around Like Beowulf Schaeffer or Louis Wu...
louis

Louis Wu wrote:Celestia has me dragging out all my old Niven books, dreaming of flying around Like Beowulf Schaeffer or Louis Wu...
louis

Louis, Beowulf01 had a very nice addon in progress for the Phssthpok's ship. From the novel 'Protector' (what is for me the real first issue in the Ringworld series: we encounter the Pak for the first time . I didn't add it in my catalog yet, sorry, because I didn't know if it is hosted somewhere for download. You can ask Beowulf, I guess. Jeam

Beowulf hasn't posted since November, but I think I have a copy of the Phssthpok ship he made somewhere on my system.

It would be nice to make a few Known space planets; are there any official maps anywhere?
The most distinctive worlds would be Jinx, WeMadeIt and Canyon, but the others would be fairly easy to do.

My own Ringworld addon might be adaptable to the Niven version;


but it has no shadow squares, nor shadows for that matter.
(this ringworld should be available from the Motherlode fairly soon, as I have recently sent it off).

One day some one might want to make a few Known Space add-ons; here is a map of Known space to start the ball rolling.
http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/nivenmap.gif

Just a quick question,

Are the +ve and -ve numbers on the map next to stars supposed to represent distances in the 3rd dimension?


BTW. Nice texture on the back of the ringworld. Does it also have walls to keep in the atmosphere? I couldn't tell from the angle of the picture.

Yes; the walls are triangular in cross section. This ring also works as an Orbital as described by Iain Banks;
I simply put it in orbit around an invisible mesh.
If anyone doesn't know about Iain Banks's orbital concept, the details can be found near the bottom of this page
http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~stefan/culture.html

It is a rotating ring, two million kilometers across, which rotates once every 24 hours to give one gee (the maths works out, more or less...)

eburacum45 wrote:It is a rotating ring, two million kilometers across, which rotates once every 24 hours to give one gee (the maths works out, more or less...)

FYI: With a 24hr period and g=9.829879 you need a radius of 1,858,728 km
.

Thank you for that; Banks says an Orbital is about 3 million kilometers across, which is nearly right, but the OA rings generally have somewhat lower gravity to allow the citizens more ease of movement.

The OA ringworld and some other, even more unusual structures are available for download here

http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catal ... m.php#3100


if you want to convert the ringworld into a Banks Orbital I will post
a 'modify' .ssc tomorrow when I am at home.